


Purr-fect Accidents

by fandomsandxfiles



Series: Files From the FBI's Most Unwanted [19]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mulder is a cat person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 14:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30107193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomsandxfiles/pseuds/fandomsandxfiles
Summary: Mulder ends up adopting a cat, but it’s really more like the cat adopts him.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Series: Files From the FBI's Most Unwanted [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020487
Comments: 7
Kudos: 31





	Purr-fect Accidents

**Author's Note:**

> this was based off an [adorable drawing](https://dnscully.tumblr.com/post/639800724182745088) i saw on tumblr today of Mulder snuggling a cat :)

Mulder must not have latched the door properly when he left this morning, because when he walked into his living room after work, there was a cat sitting on the couch. He stopped in his tracks, and the cat looked at him like _he_ was the one breaking and entering, and not the other way around. 

The intruder in question was gray and white and wasn’t wearing a collar of any kind, so it could be assumed that it was just a neighborhood stray. Mulder had seen some cats wandering the streets around the building before, but one had never actually gotten inside. He didn’t know much about his neighbors other than the fact that most of them had dogs, adding to his theory that it was a stray. 

And for a few minutes, neither of them moved. They stared at each other, as if daunting the other to react first. _This is ridiculous_ , Mulder thought to himself. _I’m having a staring contest with a cat._

He took a step towards the couch, and the cat didn’t move. It just continued to stare at him, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t want to just throw it outside in case this was actually someone’s pet, but at the same time, he wasn’t really looking for a pet himself. 

He didn’t really have time to think about anything else though, because then his phone started ringing. Or, not actually his phone, as he realized when he took it out of his pocket: he had Scully’s phone. They must have grabbed each others’ when they went to leave for the day. Barely even thinking, he answered. “Hello?” 

“Mulder, thank god,” Scully’s voice came through the other end. “I think I took your phone by accident. Do you want me to come by so we can trade?” 

Mulder nodded as the cat jumped off the couch and onto the coffee table, but it apparently wasn’t that graceful, because it fell right off while also knocking all the VHS tapes Mulder had stacked on there to the floor. “Sounds good,” he said to Scully.

“Did you drop something?” she asked. “I heard a crash.” 

“No, but I have a visitor,” Mulder said. “I’ll explain when you get here.” Then he hung up, heading over to the now-empty couch to sit down. The cat was now sitting next to the coffee table, surrounded by all the things it knocked off during its leap off the couch. Bright green eyes stared up at Mulder, and it looked almost content among the mess it had caused. 

Neither of them moved until there was a knock at the door, and when Mulder got up to answer it, the cat turned and looked in his direction. “What do you mean ‘you have a visitor?’” was the first thing Scully said to him as she walked through the doorway, and she stopped when she saw the tapes littering the ground and the small gray animal sitting among them. 

“It was here when I got home,” Mulder said. “And so far, it has done nothing but stare me down and knock over my tapes.”

“Is it a stray?” Scully asked, confusion evident on her face. 

“I don’t know,” Mulder answered. “I think I’m going to talk to the building manager and see if anyone’s missing a cat.” 

“What are you going to do if no one claims it?” 

Mulder shrugged in response. 

***

As it turned out, no one in the building was missing a pet, and Mulder was looking through the phonebook on the couch to find a nearby shelter. He had given the cat a small bowl of milk, and even though something in his head told him that probably wasn’t the best thing to give it, he really didn’t have much else in the kitchen at the moment. 

He had just finished scribbling down the phone numbers for two nearby animal shelters when the cat jumped up on the couch and settled in Mulder’s lap. He froze, not really knowing what to do. His mother had told him stories about Fluffy, the cat she had as a child, and while didn’t remember much, he did know that when Fluffy got in your lap, you weren’t moving for a while. Well, at least the TV remote was in reach. 

His phone rang again, and Mulder grabbed it quickly. The cat had since fallen asleep in his lap, and Mulder hadn’t moved. “Mulder,” he answered quietly, so as not to wake the sleeping feline on his lap. 

“Did you hear anything about your little visitor?” Scully asked. 

“No one in the building is missing an animal, and I have a few phone numbers for shelters that I’m going to call, but right now it’s asleep on my lap so I haven’t really done anything,” he admitted. 

“Are you thinking about keeping it?” she asked, and he could hear the smile in her voice. 

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s kind of grown on me, even if it likes to cause mayhem in my house.”

They talked for a little while longer, and just as Mulder hung up the phone the cat woke up, right before jumping back onto the coffee table and falling right back asleep.

***

The next morning, Mulder was jerked awake by knocking at the door, and he stumbled off the couch to get it. To his surprise, Scully was standing at the doorway, holding a large carrier in one hand and Queequeg on a leash in the other. “I have to take Queequeg to the vet, and I asked them if they would take a look at your cat,” she said. “Are you still thinking about keeping it?” 

“Maybe,” he said. “Once it calmed down a little last night it didn’t bother me.” 

“I’ll have the vet look at it and see if anything’s wrong,” she said, walking in and setting the carrier down. 

“I’ll go with you,” Mulder said, walking over to where the cat was laying on the ground and attempting to pick it up. After four tries, a small scratch, and some hissing, the cat was in the carrier and they were ready to head off. 

Mulder sat in the waiting room with the carrier as Scully took Queequeg into a room for the vet to look at him. Queequeg had decided that he didn’t like the cat, and had spent the entire car ride there barking, but quickly shut up at the cat hissed angrily at him through the door of the carrier. Scully soon returned with Queequeg and traded his leash with Mulder for the carrier. 

More time passed, and Mulder spent most of it trying to keep Queequeg from going back in the direction that Scully had gone. Thankfully though, he weighed barely anything and Mulder was able to keep hold of his leash easily. The other people in the waiting room laughed at Queequeg’s antics and told Mulder it was cute how he was waiting for his wife like that. He didn’t bother to correct them, it was too much to explain for a polite conversation.

When Scully reappeared in the waiting room, she took Queequeg’s leash and told Mulder to follow her. When they stepped back into the room, the cat jumped off the exam table and walked right up to Mulder, rubbing itself against his legs. “I was going to ask you if you definitely want to adopt her, but I think she’s made the decision for you,” the vet said with a smile. 

Mulder filled out the paperwork and was handed a stack of other papers about food, care, and everything else he could want. They would keep the cat here for a night while Mulder got everything he would need to take care of her, and then he could pick her up again the next day. 

Scully went shopping with him after dropping Queequeg back home, and they picked out everything they thought Mulder would need. “You know, you’re going to need to name her,” Scully said to him in the aisle of the pet store as they picked out cat litter.

“I know,” he said. “I’m thinking about Shadow, because there used to be a stray cat on our street and that’s what Sam would call it.” 

She smiled in response. “I like that,” she said. “I think she would too.” 

It all felt very domestic, picking out cat toys and treats with Scully, and Mulder liked it. He also liked having a cat, even if he would have to keep extra watch over the fish now to make sure Shadow didn’t try to get them. 

And Mulder could even let the cat puke on his kitchen floor slide every once in a while, that he noticed when they got back to his apartment with the stuff. Scully just laughed at his expression when he noticed it, and told him to get used to it. 

When Mulder went back to the vet to pick up Shadow, she meowed loudly when she saw him, and settled on his lap the minute they got home. 

_\- the end -_

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! if you want to come say hi, you can find me @fandomsandxfiles on tumblr and @tiredscully on twitter!


End file.
